Any Upper Manhattan resident knows only too well the problems affecting the community: lack of affordable housing; lack of public safety due to the presence of drugs, crime and violence; lack of educational services; and unemployment.

What was missing was the documentation of these problems and an extensive plan for their solution building on suggestions by the community.

This is what the Community League of the Heights (CLOTH), in Washington Heights and Hamilton Heights, did in a report presented Wednesday at City College, with New York State Assemblyman Adriano Espaillat, City Councilman Miguel Martínez, community and religious leaders, police officials, and business people from the zones studied.

“This report sets out the problems, but it also proposes a plan of action, a follow-through on the [community’s] needs with resolutions and practical measures which we will ask for,” explained Espaillat, who participated in the investigation.

“For example, in the housing area, we propose increasing the funds available for legal services. In other words, if you are a tenant and you go to New York City Housing Court, you’ll be able to count on having a lawyer, because if you go without a lawyer, there’s a high probability that you’ll lose the case.” he said.

Espaillat said the report also proposes to fight displacement with a special fund that would provide money for tenants who fall behind on their rent by one or two months, or so that he or she would not lose the apartment.

Also proposed is “a special fund for nonprofit organizations to buy empty building lots and abandoned buildings, to rehabilitate them as apartments at an accessible price for a working community like this one,” said Espaillat.

The assemblyman said the report is even more important for the area north of 135th Street, because of “Columbia University’s expansion plan, which is intended to go from 125th to 135th Street. The area could be subject to a rise in real estate prices, and consequently or rents, which could produce a displacement of area residents.”

Carlos Rodríguez, deputy press secretary at the Office of the Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields, said the initiative sought out the needs of the community, “which we all know exist, but to have them set down in numbers is the way to get any project moving and to determine the aspirations of our community.”

“There are very large institutions, with many resources, which can make decisions in a unilateral fashion, but that’s not what this community needs. What these forums will seek is a way to introduce these aspirations so that they will form part of the overall consensus,” said Rodríguez.

Yvonne Stennett, executive director of CLOTH, said that for several years the residents of Upper Manhattan have been experiencing “dramatic” changes because of “considerable reinvestment.”

“We know improvements are coming to our community, and we will monitor them. But we also want to be assured that any serious plan in our community will take into consideration the aspirations and needs of the people who live here now,” stated Stennett.

The report, titled “Heights Planning Initiative,” based on interviews with over 800 people, found that 86 percent of the residents rent their homes, and that many are in danger of becoming homeless.

By the same token, almost half of those interviewed said that the area lacks adequate recreational opportunities for young people, and a third expressed the conviction that improvement of education is an urgent necessity.

As to public security, over a third of the respondents said that an increase in public safety is needed, and almost 25 percent said they felt unsafe walking to their homes at night.

In the area of employment, 22 percent said they are currently unemployed or were looking for work, a figure three times higher than the city’s total unemployment numbers. Eighty percent of these have been seeking work for over a year.

Another immediate concern revealed by the report are health conditions in the neighborhood, such as the presence of rodents.

The proposal

Public safety: Improve the coordination among the community, the New York City Police Department, and public officials.

Education: Increase the availability of after-school programs, and increase the number of kindergartens.

Housing: Identify underused, publicly owned properties which offer the possibility of developing affordable housing.

Employment: Create or augment job-training programs connected to the principal employers or businesses of the neighborhood.

Health: Enforce existing regulations, and increase the number of garbage pick-ups.